Wednesday, July 26, 2017

Electronic Music Piece of the Day Give-Away

"Horixion" is a little bit of euphoric ambient sound wash. The "X-ion" reworking of "horizon" is a reference to the Ionian scale element of the piece. This track marks the 25th issue in the 391 & the Army of Astraea BandCamp hosted Give-Away series, with no end in sight. Enjoy!






















Visit the 391 & the Army of Astraea Bandcamp page here!

Friday, July 21, 2017

Ceramic Art of the Day: Sculpture Garden Revisted

Here's a new bit of aired-dried and un-painted clay work that I'm seriously considering calling "Victorian Woman". The piece is a hollow metal frame figurine that reflects the corset, bustle, fur hand-muffler, and hair-bun styling that we typically associate with modest middle class Victorian ladies fashion circa 1870.






































I first became interested in Victorian, and Edwardian, culture and fashion, during the process of writing two of Nevekari Enterprises period scripts, "Diamond Hill" and "Steam". The prior is a full-length feature film script in the Edwardian tragic romance genre that I'm very fond of, and the latter is a series pilot that, while full occult-tinged Victorian drama, is also "Steam-Punk".

For More Information About Diamond Hill and Steam Click Here to Visit Nevekari Enterprises Home on the Web

Saturday, July 15, 2017

Summer Solstice Preamble

In seemingly an emerging tradition here on the Gauntlet, albeit a minor one, it seems appropriate to follow the few instances of seasonal nature pics I've posted with, well, more seasonal nature pics. So, here's a few choice outdoor snaps, the last of which is a newly appeared giant weed of immense height, curious appearance, and indeterminate origin. Let's hope it's not from outer space!



Wednesday, July 12, 2017

A Gauntlet Retrospective - Stats, Spats, and Creeps

This particular blog-post doesn't fit into the usual categories seen here, which only makes sense, since this is pretty much a retrospective of, well, the development of this blog since it began last October. I had promised myself that upon the occasion of the Gauntlet of Balthazar's 2000th page view, and/or the 200th hit on the "Otis Rediohead" - Radiohead's "Creep" meets Otis Redding's "Sitting on the Dock in the Bay" mash-up video that I embedded in the very first entry on the Gauntlet, that I would re-post that video and assess the state of this project's overall progress. Ironically, both predicted goals came true on the very same day, so, here we are.

Now, I know that 200 views on a YouTube video is pretty piss-poor, and I understand that there are musical "mash-ups" out there that rack up literally millions of views. In fact, I think a few have broken the 5 million barrier, and I have been told that those videos must have been heavily promoted. However, there is a bit of a disconnect on my end, since promotion usually entails more than just savvy social media sharing and guerilla marketing, and usually requires a bit of actual advertising dollars, at least if we're talking about views in the millions. This of course vexes me as a creator, since, as you may or may not know, mash-ups are not qualified to receive YouTube monetization. So, why generate loss just to score hits that do not accrue any revenue? Obviously, it is desirable to garner a supportive following, for future projects, and I hate to sound partisan here, but, ouch.

Anyway, here's the video again. Feel free to share it with your friends, etc., etc., and maybe, just maybe, it will start to ramp up to some really decent click numbers, and aid us as we move into more crucial and substantial projects. 

Now onto other things. 

In an effort to remain at full opacity, here's the breakdown of who you are, the visitors to the Gauntlet of Balthazar, thus far.

 I define the parameters of the Gauntlet to include;

1. "From the Writer's Studio" posts about the art of screenwriting, and the analysis of films and television series.

2. The "My Dictionary; Word of the Day" feature, highlighting "invented" vocabulary.

3. The "391 & the Army of Astraea BandCamp hosted Electronic Music Piece of the Day Give-Away" program.

4. Artistic posts: i.e. "Ceramic Art of Day", "Sculpture Garden", and "From the Graphic Design Studio", as well as any random seasonal photographs that appear occasionally.

5. Any promotional or marketing art or videos relating to Nevekari Enterprises and Stubborn God Productions past and forthcoming media projects, and lastly,

6. Any political rant that I happen to be on about at a particular moment.

Obviously, there can be a lot of overlap in these categories, and politics can flavor art, and vice versa. 


In an effort to better serve your interests, I welcome your feedback. So please feel free to post a comment, and let us know which posts, or type of posts, brought you here, or had you return here.

I intend to start a Gauntlet of Balthazar Twitter account soon, and thus, if you choose to follow this page, either here, or on Twitter, you will be notified of new posts as they occur.

Thanks for being a part of this cock-eyed arena of creativity, and stay tuned for more.

Tuesday, July 11, 2017

Electronic Music Piece of the Day Give-Away

Today's BandCamp hosted 391 & the army of Astraea Give-Away release is entitled "Nine Hostages". It's a somewhat Celtic-influenced track, and its title is a reference to the Irish tale, "Niall and the Nine Hostages". Niall was a fourth century King whose dynasty, the Ui' Neills, dominated Ireland until the tenth century. Enjoy!


























For the Complete Collection of Tracks in this Series Visit the 391 & the Army of Astraea BandCamp Page Here

Sunday, July 9, 2017

From the Writer's Studio: Conspiracy Theories and the Myth of Osama bin Laden

As a writer I absolutely adore conspiracies, and occasionally, conspiracy's mutant cousin - the conspiracy theory. A "plot" working in the background of the story, of almost any kind, whether originated by a vast organization, or reflecting a few with shared interests, can move the narrative of a script or novel forward almost like nothing else.

According to Wikipedia's definition on the subject, ..."A conspiracy theory is an explanation of an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy without warrant, generally one involving an illegal or harmful act carried out by government or other powerful actors. Conspiracy theories often produce hypotheses that contradict the prevailing understanding of history or simple facts. The term is a derogatory one.

According to the political scientist Michael Barkun, conspiracy theories rely on the view that the universe is governed by design, and embody three principles: nothing happens by accident, nothing is as it seems, and everything is connected. Another common feature is that conspiracy theories evolve to incorporate whatever evidence exists against them, so that they become, as Barkun writes, a closed system that is unfalsifiable, and therefore "a matter of faith rather than proof".

I have deduced that my personal affection for conspiracies stems from a three-fold cause. Firstly, the obvious literary utility that I mentioned above. Secondly, the acceptance and awareness of conspiracies unite us as humans, by the fact that we accept that there are many organizations that we can be innately excluded from, based on such identity issues as race, religion, social and political peer groups. Thirdly, that it is an historical consistency that there have been, and always will be, ploys engaged by someone somewhere, whose actions and ultimate goals elude us completely.

Saying this, I personal perceive that I have a very high bar for what I qualify defines "a legitimate conspiracy". By legitimate I mean than there is indeed someone, or a group, whose vested interest makes their involvement in a questionable event extremely suspect.

So, let's take a look at some of my favorite "tin foil hattery", and gauge the likelihood of them passing actual conspiracy muster.

In my opinion, the grandfather of all conspiracies, and quantifiable conspiracy theories, must be the Kennedy assassination. JFK's assassination stands as the archetype of all modern conspiracies and conspiracy theories, and makes the plot hatched and executed by Booth and his Confederate confederates to kill Lincoln appear so straightforward in comparison as to make it look like child's play. Just in sheer volume of documentation and analysis, everything about this case is questionable, and every provided answer, ushers a new series of vexing queries. I expect that this confusion was built in, or at least played into, by whoever was / is ultimately responsible for the murder. Was it the Russians? the Cubans? the Mafia?, the CIA?, actually Lee Harvey Oswald acting solo?, or was it Lyndon Johnson?; Kennedy's Vice-President, and immediate successor, who, by Sherlock Holmes' standards, had the most to gain from JFK's removal, and thus, should stand as the most likely culprit.

Unlike the Kennedy assassination, I see no real incontrovertible proof that the Apollo 13 moon landing was a hoax. Since the proponents of this theory present what seems to me to be subjective and conjectural, and lacking concrete facts, I deny their claims that the moon landing was a fabrication directed by one of my film heroes, Stanley Kubrick. Nice try though.

Onto a big one, 911. What can we say about the fall of the twin towers that hasn't already been said? Many scientific facts have been presented to challenge the accepted version, and seem to support that this most horrible terror incident was "an inside job". I must say that the moment I heard of the event, that fateful Tuesday morning, the first thought that crossed my mind was, "Oh, I hope that it wasn't us".  This was very different from my reaction to the earlier attempt to bring the towers down in 1993, when I immediately was taken with a sense that the attempt was organized by the blind Jersey City jihadist Sheikh Rahman, who was later arrested for just that crime.

As a unilateral statement, I do not believe in any Dan Brown-esqe, Templar derived, global conspiracy theory. This extends to any Merovingian "Jesus" bloodline claims, the existence of the Illuminati as envisioned by conspiracy theorists, or Masonic control of national governments.

Needless to say, I also find the notion of a worldwide "Jewish conspiracy" absolutely ridiculous. If Jews were so in control, of anything, then why would there be such a thing as a poor Jew?, and why, oh why would they have allowed their ancient state to be crushed by the Romans with 85% of the population slaughtered? Why would they accept virtually non-stop persecution over the ages, followed by global marginalization, topped off with another massive genocide? This makes no sense, and the tin foil hat brigade who wish to believe in this Anti-Semitic fantasy are forced to resort to harping on the huge financial success of a single Jewish banking family, the Rothschild's.

To keep with economic organizations, I am highly suspect of the Bilderberg group, but, for all we know, they are just a fraternal organization of corporate fat cats and old money entrepreneurs who get together to commiserate about their shared love of flower arranging. There is not a shred of proof that pegs the Bilderbergs as an effective control organization any more than the John Birch Society, Bohemian Grove, or for heaven's sake, the Shriners.

But their are two conspiracy theories that I do believe in. The first is the United Nations agenda to eliminate national governments and to groom their organization into the sole governing body on earth. I can almost hear the Leftists and positive futurists poised to attack this as false, or defend it as an actually admirable goal, but I think it's pretty clear that this qualifies as a conspiracy and not just theory, since the organization has stated their goal obliquely, of not explicitly.

Lastly, I would like to touch on the poster boy of global Islamic terror,  Al Qaeda's Osama bin Laden. I am sure that Osama was indeed a disaffected Saudi rich kid who became attracted to the fundamentalist movement. I am sure that he led his group in military operations against coalition forces in Afghanistan, but, beyond all of that something is rotten in Denmark. On the eve of US actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, in response to the 911 attacks, (though neither nation had anything to do with it), we knew Osama to be living at his compound outside of Peshawar, Pakistan. In my opinion, the only thing more idiotic than invading Iraq in the first, and second place, was President Obama's withdrawal from Iraq, which created a power vacuum which allowed for the emergence of a Sunni extremist insurgency which soon coalesced into ISIS. Regardless of what one thinks about President Trump, he went on record repeatedly, sharing my opinion in regard to both tactical blunders.

So, what was Obama to do with the middle east? His virtue signaling nature made it so that he needed to appear to his devotees as a man of peace. After all, he did get the Nobel Peace Prize while conducting five wars. I expect that in retrospect a more frank future will confess honestly that he was clearly gifted that award as a token for being the first African-American president elect - which was absolutely a racist move by people who care more about appearance than actual results, which I would say should include something like, I don't know, MAKING PEACE SOMEWHERE!!

To appease the left, President Obama had to show his middle east muscle obliquely, and this he did, with 20,000 drone strikes, all the while orchestrating a drastic troop withdrawal to please both sides of the aisle. But, he had to get, more personal. Reagan had Gadafi and the Ayatollah Khomeni, Bush and Bush Jr. had Saddam Hussein, and Obama had Osama. But, there was one small problem - Osama's appearance had changed in every clip Al Qaeda released. He was clearly ill and not improving. Something had to be done fast, and so, a secret mission was hatched, and a squad was recruited to "take him down".

This "manhunt" led to a military op on the same compound he had been "hiding at" for the last decade. His body was supposedly recovered from the wreckage, but a decision was made to quickly bury him at sea, all the time with not one frame of photo documentation! Add to it that the "zero dark thirty" team were soon after killed in action seems like an amazing Jack Ruby-esqe coincidence.

As Obama touted his great achievement, all I could think was, "where's the body?". We were allowed to see Saddam, a leader who t,hough he was a brutal secular, and yes Socialist, dictator, kept his national from factional sectarian violence for decades, and kept Iranian power in check as well. Anyway, we were allowed to see him executed by the Kurdish authority on the nightly news, but in respect to Osama bin Laden, why couldn't bring ourselves to verify his capture and death? The line there is suddenly presented as such would have just been indecent. This to me points to the fact that he most likely had been long deceased at the time of the mission, and all that followed was a conspiracy cover-up.

I know that by now I've swung far more into pure politics than most "From the Writer's Studio's" post updates, but seriously, I don't think you couldn't write conspiracies this botched into a script. Everyone would say that they're not believable. But the sad truth is that most people in the real world believe the obnoxiously overt farce of Osama bin Laden's demise as bona fide. Then again, the more we study history, and these conspiracies and conspiracy theories, failed or successful, we are apt to learn what not to do in our writing, and how to better improve as literary creators. And that, friends, can never be a bad thing.

Friday, July 7, 2017

From the Writer's Studio: The Vexing Chasm of Formatting and Brain Speed Differential

I write fast, really fast, and since the advent of smart phones and social media, I think my once endless scrawls of chicken scratch note pads have become clearer, more concise, and have benefited overall from the option of frequent revision and end up edited many more times than was possible for a work jotted down in pen, or even cranked out an old school typewriter with and "erase ribbon". After all, nowadays we can alter even after the fact, as I often do here on the Gauntlet - publishing a post, and then going back into it several times whenever I happen to notice an error or two.

It's a problem of diligence I expect.

I think that we all, writers or not, can accept the need for text of whatever sort to be grammatically correct, to not display sloppy typos, or boast misspellings galore. I know that as a multiple-awarded screenwriter I get much more roasted by friends when I let a misplaced apostrophe fly in a facebook thread rant. I mean, I know I WILL HEAR something like: "Hey, I thought you were a writer, man." But, I still do it, and it seems that every once in a while, even when trying my best, a few glitches in the Matrix slip by me, as I assume they do to pretty much everyone else as well.

As I said, I write fast, which probably has to do with a conditioned hyper-kinetic element lodged somewhere in the right side of my brain, which is complicated further by the fact that the human mind is forced to filter out the grand majority of sense based information which heads our way pretty much non-stop from alpha to omega. Otherwise, we would be completely overwhelmed and be "not functional". Thus, our brains make do with what attention we can spare, and what percentage of information available to us at any given time. We can make heads or tails of large passages of text that is almost word soup, and still be able to suss out, by a process that is known as psycho-linguistic cognition, "word shape", which is the opposite of the "shape of letters". 

From the Brain Sciences Unit of Cambridge University on-line, and citing Dr. George Rawlinson of the Psychology Department of the University of Nottingham. In an unpublished PHD thesis in 1976, Rawlinson laid out the significance of letter position in regard to word recognition, and I expect that just the first two lines alone convey his point demonstrably.

It deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae... it doesn't matter in what order the letters in a word are, the only important thing is that the first and last letter be at the right place.

Now, I'm not trying to totally pass the buck here, and blame my identification as "Mr. Typo" on some innate condition. I'm just trying to put it into perspective.

I must admit that I am much more of a creator than a nit-picker, and I am a million more times interested in the curve of the story and the meaning behind a work than to let a stray error ruin it for me. Likewise, if the prose is beautiful or the descriptive or dialog is gut-wrenching, I'm not the one to focus on that colon which should have been a semi-colon. But, saying all this, my best advice for anyone who is trying to write their  first great novel, script, etc., is to learn all of the rules, and at least try to shake out the bugs. If worst comes to worst there are software programs like Celtx and Final Draft to help you with the layout and neatness on the page. But, auto-correct can only go so far, so for God's sake get someone, or many someones, who have eyes for it, to look over your stuff with a fine tooth comb.

I'm not promising that if you read up on formatting, dedicate yourself to scouring it line by line, and roping in every friend and relation you have, that you will not find a lost typo on your hundred-and-fiftieth revision. You probably will. But as with story and dialog, the craft of being a writer, or being any sort of artist, is a goal of always improving across the board, often in imperceptible increments.

If you are committed to the process of gradual improvement, and take it upon yourself to make words like "revision" and "editing" synonymous with "writing", then the one thing I can promise is that your work will be better perceived by a public and industry who are far too eager to slam the door in your face for any excuse they can find.

Till next time - Captain Typo...away!
 

Wednesday, July 5, 2017

Independence Day 2017: the Remarkable Delight of the Left's Torment

Like many around the world, (I assume) I tend to peripherally reflect on "big picture" political and cultural elements on the occasion of most national or religious holidays, and this July 4th was no exception. Amid the cakes, meats, and beer, and the sun, sand and outdoor hi-jinks, one cannot fully push thoughts of identity, and national pride, or lack thereof, in our heart and in the hearts of our fellow countrymen, out of our minds.

I'm sure that this sentiment occurs to citizens in every nation on earth, and always has. In fact, it's not particularly difficult to picture the average peasant-farmer grumbling under his breath; "Things were so much better under Ghenghiz Khan than under Kublai Khan", and I expect this was indeed voiced by someone who was otherwise a loyal citizen of the Mongol Empire, as well as in every other historical period and in every national culture. Regardless, this is perhaps all the more so in light of the last seven months, i.e. the Trump presidency, which appears to be among the most vociferous periods in America's political history.

According to a recent poll published by Fox News, just over half (51%) of Americans asked stated that they are proud of the United States today. That number mostly held steady since last June, but it’s down from a high of 69% in 2011. Conversely, 45% of voters declare themselves as "not proud". By a 25-point margin, Republicans (64%) are more likely than Democrats (39%) to say they’re proud of the US.

I personally find this information completely predictable, and while many might attempt to attribute this split to partisan divisions, I believe that this party skew in regard to pro and anti civic-nationalism probably extends back to the Civil War, if not prior. In saying this I am not attempting to cast aspersions on Democratic voter's fidelity, but let's be honest, the left, and increasingly, the far left, has embraced more and more Socialist ideals. Socialism is by its nature, anti-sovereign and globalist, and thus, this belief undermines individual identification with nation, or race, in deference to the intangible inter-connectedness of "the common man and woman" around the earth. Besides, identitarian victim-narrative and class, race and gender warfare are the Alinskyite currency by which the left leverages their power over both its devotees and enemies.  

But this phenomena does not end here. The true reason for leftists denial of voter legitimacy, delusions of collusion, and triggered torment since the election of Donald Trump last November, has roots that go much deeper and began when Trump himself was a small child, if not earlier.

It's common knowledge that the left has long dominated the arts, the intelligentsia, and academia, since the Age of Enlightenment. Add to it that the counter-culture radicals of the 1960's had taken their place in the system they previously attacked, they were now positioned to see themselves as the arbiters of the culture war. A conscious effort was under way by the left to co-opt the system, and to "re-educate" those who failed to see the beauty of their message. By the time the 1980's rolled around, the brain-washing was so ingrained on most college campuses, that even many present Conservatives will tell you they were Liberals at the time, falling for the party line that anyone to the right was either an oligarch, a fascist, a racist, a sexist, a religious extremist, etc., add your own additional pejorative appellation.

The pervasive influence of leftist thought so dominated the media that it slowly became radical to hold beliefs contrary to the "sensible" agenda of the Democratic Party. In the early 2000's, when the Tea Party sought to redefined the Republican Party, this allowed for a greater diversity within the Conservative branch of our Republic's tree. Meanwhile, as the Republican party broadened, the left were riding high. After all, they had just elected President Obama, and they were in the midst of plying their typical attack strategy to silence overt dissent.

In retrospect, perhaps the silence of the right was mistaken for victory by the left. Sure, there would still be Republicans, but they were a thing of the past, like the dinosaurs. Democrats could sit back and be assured that the White House would be held by them now, and for the foreseeable future.

With total victory so palpable, Democrat arrogance, and smugness, ruled the day, and the Democrats that as a conscious and unconscious signal to push their core agenda all the harder. The Social Justice War went into full effect, and identity politics became the currency and litmus that one's place in society would be judged by.

But what the DNC didn't grasp was that the GOP had been brought to heel by Republican voters. The GOP had made it clear that "their" candidate was Jeb Bush, but Republican voters said "no thanks". In fact, Bush was arguably number eight in the mix, while the DNC was fairly split between Clinton and Sanders, and told their electorate that they would make the choice for them, and they should shut up and just do as they're told. But this dictatorial timbre should be of no shock, since Socialist governments worldwide possess no great track record for holding back on enforcing their will unilaterally on their citizens. 

So when Madame Clinton went up against Mister Trump last year, this was not just about Democrat versus Republican, as always. This was about the visceral failure of the left's 50 year media and academic indoctrination program. In their collective mind they had already wiped out the opposition psychologically and philosophically, and up until election results started to pour in, and even after her loss, with the fore-knowledge of her long list of flaws, die-hard Dems could not conceive of this turn of events, because even their worst candidate was better than a, yuck, Republican.

The SJW meltdowns started there, and have since morphed into many manifestations. Antifa and Black Lives Matter riots, Women's marches, state voter recounts, FBI investigations, impeachment rants, and an endless 24/7 media smear campaign, all of which frankly make people who are slightly pro-Trump want to adore him all the more, regardless of his many flaws.

As the smug, self-assured faces of earnest Democrats morphed into shocked, bitterly indignant, butt-hurt sore losers, the torment of the left became all encompassing, and to those of us on the other side of the wall, we found their pain to be a remarkable delight. Watching them pull out their hair and not just accept defeat, as the other side had done, quietly, over and over through the years, made the victory all the more sweet.

In the end this was, and is, not even so much about Donald Trump. The 2016 election results, and the backlash to and fro since, was in many respects a biggest middle-finger from those who had been pushed from left to right by the dictatorship of the left itself. The disaffected hand of middle class rural America slapped the urban cultural elite so hard in the face that it shook the culture warriors to their core, rattled the corporatists, challenged political correctness, and threatened the status quo.

This is what Democracy means, and this is what happens in a culture war when one side has made its belief mandatory, and the other side believes that beliefs shouldn't be mandatory.

Happy Independence Day, America. Hang in there.

Monday, July 3, 2017

From the Writer's Studio: "Yes, Virginia, the Bechdel Test Does Go Both Ways!" - Feminist vs. Egalitarian Screenwriting

I've touched on this subject before on the Gauntlet, but I must say that it's an issue that never fails to present itself again and again. This is probably due to the fact that rather than focusing on the artistic merit of gender diversity in film, the political agenda of third stream feminists has walked hand-in-hand with leftist-globalism, and has pervasively influenced the media, and ergo, most people's perception of gender inequality. This in turn has encouraged many to approach gender related matter in films with, let us say, kid gloves, terrified of losing the lucrative female consumer demographic. In my opinion, I expect that this conformity to political correctness, and the safety of the status quo, only serves to undermine the initially well-meaning parameters of the Bechdel test as it was first conceived to apply to script work.

In case you are unaware, the Bechdel test, or Bechdel-Wallace test, was created in the mid-1980's, and was designed to gauge sexist content (against women) in screenwriting so it could be objectively measured. The rule primarily operates on a percentile base, specifically relating to the amount of female characters in the script or film, and more importantly, the content of their dialog. Often, but mostly not explicitly stated, the elasticity of the criteria moves past the art itself and into the real world, encompassing practical, behind the camera issues, such as, "is the writer, director or producer of such and such a film female?"

According to Wikipedia: "...the Bechdel Test, sometimes called the Mo Movie Measure or Bechdel Rule is a simple test which names the following three criteria: (1) it has to have at least two women in it, who (2) who talk to each other, about (3) something besides a man. The test was popularized by Alison Bechdel's comic Dykes to Watch Out For, in a 1985 strip called The Rule. For a nice video introduction to the subject please check out The Bechdel Test for Women in Movies on feministfrequency.com."

As a writer, and I hope as a good one, I demand of myself the capacity to create characters of either gender or sexual orientation, as well as any race or ethnic group, or religion or creed. I understand that in the past female screenwriters had a hard go of it a male dominated industry, and that often male writers have presented female characters as one-dimensional archetypes supporting the male lead rather than as the fully fleshed out people they deserved to be in the world of film story. I grasp that the problem of literary sexism continues to exist in some smaller ways, but the goal here is to create quality writing, yes? Not to empower an over-arching revenge ploy or victimization narrative, right?

We, as creators, want to produce the best work possible, and in the modern world, the best way to do so is to not be "sexist" or "feminist", but rather, to be "egalitarian", and treat all characters as equally important to the structure of the plot and interpersonal relationship hierarchy within the realities we have created.

But perhaps, I am "man-splaining" too much.

I once described our (Nevekari Enterprises) eight time awarded script "Classical Ideal" as feminist. But upon much reflection, and some major revisions, I feel that it is indeed now a truly egalitarian work. Classical Ideal chronicles the slow evolution of Lilly Goslicki, who has just awakened from a medical procedure designed to "reboot" her genome after a dreadful road accident.

The Log-Line reads: In the near future a woman awakens to find that she has been transformed into an ideal version of herself - the only catch, her memory of the past has been obliterated. Manipulated by a culture driven by vanity and unreasonable expectations, she struggles to find what she has lost.

To me, Classical Ideal is a great un-produced work, and the script will one day emerge as a great, and philosophically meaningful film, if I may say so without sounding as if I am bristling with hubris. But I have to admit, the more I thought about its place as a feminist  script, the more I realized I was engaging in reverse sexism, against my own gender!


This was not because it failed the Bechdel test, but more so, because Classical Ideal inverted the test and failed its male characters, who clearly spent the majority of their screen time talking about the dominant female characters. Since the protagonist and major antagonist are both female, this may not seem like much of an issue. Or is it?

According to the main page of www.passthebechdeltest.com the criteria for reversing the Bechdel test has only peripherally entered the feminist mind.

"What about the reverse Bechdel Test? When the under representation of men on film is a problem, we can talk about this. At the moment a reverse test is not relevant or useful. That said, there is some very limited research on the reverse stats available. Some imprecise calculations were done here by Reddit user celacanto, and even with simplified assumptions over 90% of films are estimated to pass the reverse test."

Absolutely poppycock! To deny it exists, when I have a work in hand that fulfills the concern, is only as repugnant as questioning its "usefulness". I also find it interesting and rather telling that the author here has referred to the issue as the "representation of men on film". Thus, even in their description they have chosen to negate content in preference to numerical visual gender representation. 

This reverse sexist thinking can even be seen on the international film festival and script competition circuit, where there are certain feminist festivals that exclusively welcome films made by women. In some cases these films may not even feature a female character, and, ironically, it is not even a requirement that these films pass the Bechdel test. One must admit, it is no hard task to picture a  male writer pondering if he should even bother entering his feminist script into a feminist focused competition, out of fear from being "disqualified" by virtue of genitalia vs. content.

Add to it that we have seen many major films where women played a hefty hand in the story craft, such as the Hunger Games series, but where the script completely can not pass Bechdel muster. Katniss Everdeen spends a trilogy of films torn over her one hunky beau, and her damaged beau. She never truly develops her own political identity, but instead sleepwalks to other characters instruction. Aside from her one observation that the rebellion is as corrupt as President Snow, she is more than willing to go back to the country with the winning contender for her heart and start pushing out the pups.

Look, I'm not saying that their is no place for a woman to express an overt traditionalist bent, and by all means we need same gendered characters to talk to one another about the other sex. It's part of the natural way we interact as humans of either gender with the rest of the world. It's also one of the ways a writer can relate internal feelings through exposition which approximates naturalistic character interaction and dialog. It's called "confessional", and without this element, I don't think the entire genre of Romantic Comedy could even exist. Regardless, even in these stereotypes, we can find a diversity of character types. There can be indecisive males and demure females, but where we see the reverse sexism of the industry present itself fully is not only in the work of women screenwriters, but maybe more so from male "feminists" attempting to virtue signal to the feminist, and female, segment of society. 

A perfect example where this is overt is probably best illustrated by the recent  re-make of the film "Ghostbusters". In the film, the paradigm is virtually flipped, with three male white scientist characters substituted for female versions. However, the producers could not resist going that one step further into mishominy, as I coined the man-hating equivalent of misogyny in my word of the day feature right here, or you'd like, the equally newly coined feminist "misandry", they had to throw in one more element to not just balance the scale, but to denigrate men as a gender. In the original, and to its credit, while their were few female characters they were fully fleshed out. This includes the secretary character, Janine Melnitz, played by Annie Potts, who had a distinctly skeptical and practical side, and physically was, well, a bit of nerd, and far from the typical image of the sexist plaything many secretaries were depicted as in yesteryear. However, our male secretary in the new outing, is played by the hunky Chris Hemsford, and is pretty much a vacuous "mimbo".

"Girl Power" is one thing, but when any victim identity makes the pressing for equal rights, or just taking pride in their identity to desiring revenge in order to balance scales that can never be truly balanced, simply because we can't re-write and undo the past, this becomes sheer fallacy.

While this pattern is part and parcel of pretty much all leftist thought, in the long run victim and revenge narrative helps no one, particularly the "oppressed group" in question. Far from downtrodden, women in our society are arguably in control, at least socially. The pay gap has been proved to be relative to occupational choice, and has been debunked by a Harvard feminist professor. Women in first world nations are not oppressed, and in many ways they possess more cultural power than their male counterparts. At the very least, even the most ardent third stream feminist would be forced to admit that women in first world nations possess all of the legal rights as males. Obviously there is still work to be done in nations like Saudi Arabia, etc., etc., but right here, right now, revenge screenwriting just creates more animosity and division between different identity groups, the classes, and the genders, and perhaps more to the point of this post, it creates bad writing. And that is something we all, as creators and consumers, shouldn't have to stand for.



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